


a long long time ago

by orphan_account



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-19
Updated: 2013-10-19
Packaged: 2017-12-29 21:36:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1010389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's the moon, above all else, that moves her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	a long long time ago

**Author's Note:**

> part of the labyrinth collection.

She doesn’t think to open her eyes at first.

She doesn’t think of anything.

There’s the taste of blood and the feel of mud, and the stench of death. She’s hot. She’s hot but the world is cold and she can feel the grass on her skin. She can smell fire, the burning bodies. People are still screaming, why are people screaming.

Because we’re eating them, she thinks. Why am I not eating them? she thinks.

And then all her thoughts burn away.

Like usual.

 

It’s her lungs, she thinks, that wake her the second time. She’s breathing in ashes and smoke and its burning her up from the inside, burning her up more than usual. And this time she feels it, the way flecks settle in her throat. She knows she can feel it, knows to know that.

She --

She opens her eyes and the world is dark, and up above the sky is full of stars, smudged by the heat radiating up from the fires.

The are stars.

For a moment she doesn’t make the connection, the way the lights prick the dark blanket above, the way she hasn’t seen them in so long, so very long. For a moment she doesn’t move, just stares. Wonders, for too many seconds, if this is some sort of nightmare, dangled in front of her to punctuate all the things she’s missed. All the things she’s forgotten she’s missed.

And then other things settle. The weight of her body. Her limbs sinking into the ground, her fingers aching from god knows what. She can feel her head, the throbbing behind her eyes.

The moon.

God, she can see the moon.

It takes her a minute to lift her hand up to her face, to see five fingers, small and thin and not clawed. A wrist. Her arm. Human sized. Child sized.

She can’t breathe.

The smoke thickens, but she -- her body. Her body is human. She’s human again. She struggles to sit up, to see her waist and her hips and the legs stretching out in front of her. Everything shakes, weak, probably from regurgitating everything. From regurgitating people.

There’s a crack of fire to her left and her head whips around and her vision spins.

She has legs. She has legs and feet and she’s always had both but she can feel these, can feel the ache in the bone, can think through that ache. They’re not made for climbing or chasing after prey they’re just -- they’re different, they’re hers, they’re --

She forces herself to her feet, coughs on the smoke, chokes on it, feels a strange stretching in her face. She remembers that, the way the corners of her mouth can turn up and she can grin.

 

Later, when she’s made herself move, when she’s made herself find safety away from the fire, she passes her hands over her body. Over the smooth skin, and the short hair and the human teeth. Stares at her fingers that are small and made for eating small things. And later still, she will turn her face up and stare at the stars and marvel at how they’ve changed. Marvel at how they gleam, how the moon shines, how its rays hit the water around the boat and are broken up by its waves.

And she will marvel, too, at the way tears leak out of the corners of her eyes and slip down her cheeks. That she can still do that despite all this time. That she can feel things so very deep inside herself and be moved by them. That even now, she still has that. Despite her sins.

Despite everything.

She lives.

 


End file.
